


Pink In The Night

by Ogygia



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Drunken Confessions, F/F, First Kiss, Give Lilith A Girlfriend, Lesbian Tannis Agenda, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:28:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21776797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ogygia/pseuds/Ogygia
Summary: Lilith and Tannis have a talk about their feelings.Spoiler alert: They are not heterosexual feelings.
Relationships: Lilith/Patricia Tannis
Comments: 5
Kudos: 48





	Pink In The Night

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a little Tannith drabble I was fucking around with and it got away with me! Enjoy rarepair hell.

If Lilith squints hard enough she can pour this next shot of whiskey, she _can_. Her grief is like this glass, dark and hollow, and the best solution to that crap? Drowning the little bastard until things stop hurting for awhile. The damn bottle won’t stop shaking in her grasp, though, and somehow her glass is a lot smaller than it was an hour ago. She really can’t afford to spill any of it either, because it’s not some cheap shit they cooked up in the wasteland, it’s _special_ , something from Roland himself. A ‘15, a real Heran blend, too. One of his old officers had given it to him to commemorate a sparkly promotion, and he’d never, ever opened it.

“Been saving this one for a long time,” he’d told her with a soft smile. “Maybe when this is all over, when we have a real reason to celebrate, we’ll crack it open, huh?” And then he’d stashed it in her storage deck for a future he’d never be a part of.

“Roland,” she says miserably. Either there’s an extra _something_ in this whiskey or she’s going crazy, because she swears she can still see him, she can hold him in her mind for a little longer, glimmering like a mirage on the other side of her table. “I still need you…”

The only reply she gets is her own tinny echo from the empty room. She puts her face down on the table with a quiet sob, because she can never make it stop, this cold realization dropping into the pit of her stomach that he’s just really _gone_.

“I thought we talked about this, Lilith,” comes Tannis’ voice from the doorway. Lilith sits up with a start, wiping furiously at her stinging eyes. “Drinking in secrecy is a key symptom of alcoholism.”

This isn’t the first time Tannis has found her like this, and to be completely honest? It won’t be the last. At least this way she ends up in her own bunk sleeping it off instead of having someone like Ellie sigh sadly over the mess she’s made of herself in the morning.

“It’s not a secret if you’re here,” Lilith points out, hating how small and childish her voice sounds. She clears her throat gently. “You wanna… sit with me?”

Tannis considers the bottle between them for a moment. “Of course.” She slides into the bench beside Lilith, close enough that she can get a whiff of whatever strange chemicals Tannis has been working with tonight. They make her nose tickle, and she tries her best not to sneeze right in the other woman’s face.

“You know, Roland gave me this.” Lilith lifts the half-empty bottle up to the light, turning the liquid inside a soft amber color. “Never touched it before, never had a reason to.”

“But now you do,” says Tannis quietly, no doubt noticing how much of the alcohol has gone missing.

“That’s the problem, I don’t. I realized… maybe I never would, you know? I didn’t want to keep carrying the damn thing around but, I couldn’t let anyone else have it either. It was supposed to be _ours_ ,” Lilith finishes in a low, bitter voice. She doesn’t let the dark thoughts swallow her up again, instead scooting over and placing her head on Tannis’ shoulder with a huff.

To her surprise, Tannis stiffly wraps an arm around her, as if she’s never really done it before. The chemical smell gets stronger, but so does the warm smell of skin beneath it. “You won’t believe me, but I do understand. We all have our rituals to get through the day without the ones we loved that were so callously ripped from our hands.”

Lilith pouts. “I believe you.”

A little smile appears on Tannis’ face. “Thank you.” She takes the bottle from Lilith, examining the label. “The only problem, of course, is that you carry a burden far heavier than I or anyone else in Sanctuary does: You carry Roland’s memory _and_ his legacy. I… worry about you.”

“I’ll get through this,” Lilith insists. “I _have_ to. For everyone, for you.”

“As much as I despise teamwork, I must remind you that you don’t have to do any of this _alone_. I try to offer my assistance in whatever capacity I can extend—and believe me, it is no easy feat—but I feel that my efforts are often ignored.”

Lilith shakes her head, which just makes her stupid drunk brain feel like it’s sloshing around. “I’m not ignoring you, Tannis, I just have a lot on my plate lately. I know how hard it is for you to reach out, and I’m reaching back for you, okay?” 

She doesn’t know what possesses her to do what she does next, but it feels like a good idea, so she reaches up and brushes a stubborn streak of dirt from Tannis’ cheek. Tannis shivers, despite the room being so warm that Lilith had to pull her jacket off earlier.

“I’m sorry. Does that bother you?” asks Lilith quietly, eyes wide, hand awkwardly floating beside the doctor’s face.

“No.” Tannis stares at her, never at her eyes, but close enough, like the patch of skin between them, and her gaze turns to something soft and strange that Lilith can’t quite read but thinks she likes, somehow. “In fact, it disturbs me how little you bother me these days.”

Lilith can’t help but laugh at that, and she lets her fingers ghost along the edges of Tannis’ jaw, drawing another little shiver out of her. “Well, that’s good, right? We’ve come a long way.”

Tannis nods. “We have. I’ve enjoyed the time we’ve spent together when we can. You have an unusually calming effect on me.”

“Even when I’m drunk off my ass?” Lilith grins crookedly, leaning into Tannis now. Her lips feel numb against her teeth, and Tannis’ eyes drop, staring intently at them in a way that makes Lilith feel warmer than the whiskey already has.

“Even then.”

The moment hangs thickly between them. Lilith wonders if this is maybe one of those times Tannis is reaching out for her.

“Hey, why don’t you join me? Why don’t you… uh, have a little of this?” Lilith’s hands skitter across the table as she sets up the shot glass, licking any spilled drops of whiskey from her fingertips. “You can just sip it, you don’t need to like, down it or anything. Not like me.”

Tannis’ eyes have been zeroed in on her mouth for several seconds now, but she finally tears them away and peers at the glass. She lifts it with both hands, sniffing at it delicately. “This wasn’t made with rakk now, was it?” she asks suspiciously.

“No, no, it’s not Pandoran. A helluva lot smoother than anything you’ll get here.”

That seems to put Tannis at ease. She takes a sip and immediately grimaces. “Oh, it _burns_.”

Snorting, Lilith rubs at her back gently, enjoying the solid warmth beneath her palm. “It gets better, killer, I promise.”

“If you say so,” says Tannis, eyeing the glass like it’s a venomous creature in her hand before quickly shoving it into her mouth with a loud gulp. She gasps and makes a face again, and Lilith shouldn’t laugh, but Tannis looks so unbearably _sweet_. “Ugh. I understand the physiology of intoxication, but humans really did go about making the start of that journey as unpleasant as possible, didn’t they?”

Lilith snorts again and pours herself the next shot. “Roland would be proud of you,” she tells her suddenly, then swallows the whiskey down easily.

Tannis reaches for the bottle. “What makes you say that?”

“Just… he wanted you to feel like this place was your home.” Lilith bites at her lips to stop the swell of emotion rising behind her eyes. “And I feel like you’ve done a pretty good job at that, making a home, letting people in.”

“Yes,” says Tannis, ducking her head to watch the whiskey trickle into the glass below. “Certain people are more tolerable than others, of course.”

“Like me,” Lilith teases, and Tannis nods, her cheeks instantly going pink.

“I thought we’d established that already.”

Lilith rests her hand at the back of Tannis’ neck, playing with the soft strands there, feeling her own pulse echo in her ears like distant thunder every second that Tannis _doesn’t_ pull away. “I know, I just don’t think I’m ever going to get tired of hearing you admit my face doesn’t make you want to puke or something.”

Tannis shakes her head. “Of course not. You’re a very beautiful woman, Lilith, I thought that much was obvious.”

Lilith’s hand stills. “You think I’m pretty?”

“Are you going to make me repeat myself all night? Also, don’t stop… _that_.”

Lilith looks at her hand and smiles stupidly as she starts to move it again. Okay, yeah, she can do that much. “You really like me touching you, huh?”

Tannis huffs, looking away in embarrassment. “I can’t explain it.”

“That’s all right, we don’t have to always be talking about our feelings or whatever. We can just… chill.”

“I so rarely feel positive emotions about other people, I think, well,” Tannis grimaces around another shot, “yes, perhaps we should dwell on our feelings some more.”

Lilith sits up a little straighter. “Uh, where do you wanna begin?”

Tannis speaks without looking up from her glass. “I suppose… with _you_. Here we are, drinking in Roland’s memory…”

“Oh. Ohhh.” Lilith reaches over and carefully puts a hand over Tannis’, giving it a gentle squeeze. “Tannis, there’s nothing wrong with the way you feel, and I don’t think it’s disrespectful, not to me, not to Ro. I… I dunno, I kind of feel the same way?”

Tannis gives her a cautious look. “Explain.”

“I like you, too, you mean a lot to me, in ways I can’t always define or explain. And I loved him, I still love him, but… I have to move on, one day, and I’m getting there, little by little, in my own stupid-ass way.” Lilith leans her head against Tannis’ shoulder. “I think you’ve really been helping me with that.”

Tannis turns and presses a clumsy, wet kiss to Lilith’s forehead. Lilith just lets her eyes flutter shut, savoring the warm outline of lips on her skin, the smell of whiskey on Tannis’ breath, the thrum of her blood under her skin. “Shoulda gone for the mouth,” she mutters.

Tannis coughs in surprise. “The angle, ah, did not permit it.”

“Hm.” Lilith sits up, and Tannis’ eyes are huge and green when she meets them, filled with a mixture of curiosity and fear. She cups her face in both hands, her thumbs smoothing back tufts of Tannis’ dark hair. “How about this?”

“If you’re certain, Lilith...”

“Pretty damn certain,” Lilith confirms.

Tannis leans in and softly kisses her mouth. It’s kind of sweet how light and almost chaste it is, but Lilith loops an arm behind Tannis’ neck and deepens the kiss, gets her right where she wants her, and Tannis eagerly responds in kind. Lilith’s warm and fuzzy world narrows down to that wet mouth, the hands gently and experimentally tracing over her stomach and ribs, the wonderfully _weird_ smell of Tannis.

Finally they pull away.

“Um, so,” Lilith begins, a little breathless. “What’s your verdict?”

Tannis smiles softly. “I don’t believe I have enough data to make an informed decision.”

“Oh, we can definitely work on that, now, or later… whatever’s good with you.”

“Now would be fine,” says Tannis, and she kisses her again.


End file.
